Let’s Levitate - making running available to everyone

A star seizes every opportunity for greatness - and Levitate is breaking all the barriers and making running available to everyone.

Created by athletes with amputations

Levitate is an innovative sports brand making running blades for amputees. By offering affordable customized running blades to amputees worldwide, they are opening up the world of sports and making running available to everyone! Something that was not widely available before, due to the high price points of other running blades on the market.

Making dreams come true to everyone

Being able to run, participate in your favourite sports and live an overall active lifestyle - these are all unique dreams for all of us, but Levitate aims to make these dreams come true to everyone. At Levitate they empower people with amputations to live life to the fullest and refuse to let anything hold them back. Their prosthetics give amputees renewed mobility and the ability to be physically active - get moving, go running and cross the finish line - much cheaper than ever before.

We met with the cool team behind Levitate to hear their interesting story and understand the technology of the prosthetics, while experiencing the running blades in full action.

Read the full interview below the pictures.

Could you tell us about yourself?

My name is Lasse W. Madsen, I am the CEO and Co-founder of the sports tech startup Levitate. I’m an amputated runner myself and my mission is to give people with disabilities simple access to the sports equipment they need to live an active life.

Could you briefly give us an introduction to Levitate?

Levitate is a sports tech startup that has developed an affordable sports blade solution for amputees. We give people with amputations around the world the opportunity to pursue an active lifestyle; something that has so far been a major challenge. It has been difficult to access sports and exercise products in the prosthetic industry, and even more difficult to gain transparent insight into prices. We challenge the status quo by connecting with the users and giving them the opportunity to purchase our product directly.

How did you come up with the idea to establish Levitate?

In the summer of 2019, I decided to resume physical training again and I faced the same challenge as most other amputees; ‘How do I get a sports blade?’. In the same style as many others, I began to look into the options available and quickly discovered that getting such a product was not an easy process. It often ends up costing around 60-150,000 DKK.

I decided to explore the idea of ​​making one myself as I thought it could be made cheaper. I quickly reached out to DTU (Technical University of Denmark) to build a prototype and started posting videos on Instagram.

The positive feedback I received from the early prototypes resulted in me starting Levitate.

Can you explain how you would apply the blades and how they work “in action” while doing an activity?

Levitate's sports blade is designed to replace your everyday prosthetic walking foot when it comes to exercising. It weighs only a few hundred grams, and therefore gives the amputee the opportunity to move from side to side as well as jump and run; three main elements in almost all sports.

The product comes ready as an out of the box experience with everything the user needs to get started. The product is simply mounted to the users existing solution.

What kinds of sports can you do with the current blades?

The use of Levitate products varies greatly; our users play everything from soccer, to basketball, running and hockey. We have users whose goal is to get to the Paralympic Games, and many others who just want to exercise or play with their children.

What is the feedback from people using your blades? Could you share some user-experiences and hero-stories from people using your blades.

Sian Lord
”I wish I could write down the feelings I’m going through right now but it’s almost impossible. But if I really had to pick one word that best describes, it would be fulfilled. Having prosthetic legs that allow you to walk is one thing but then getting a leg that allows almost that same freeing feeling as having 2 legs...well that’s hard to put into words. I have a part of me that has been buried away for almost 8 years finally back and I just don’t know what to do first.

Whatever moves we make my new baby we will always do them with confidence & pride...welcome to the fam.”

Read about other customer feedback/testimonials

What are your future plans with Levitate?

Equal rights to an active life.
Our plans with Levitate are to create the largest international sports brand for the physically challenged. We focus on amputees and will in the future launch a range of physical and digital products that will make it even easier to get active and exercise.

Next, we will tackle other types of challenges and develop products that will meet the same needs that we see in amputees today.

Keep up with Levitate here:
Website
IG & FB

Interested in more stories from the SAYSKY world, then click here.